Brit Milah part 2

I post regularly to Facebook and Google+, and to a Fujifilm forum. The responses I received on the
forum concerning my first entry about the Brit Milah were quite interesting and encouraged me to write once again about it and post more photos of the event.

Apparently people took exception with my description of the occasion as 'joyous' because the photos didn't seem to portray people who were enjoying themselves. I'm not one to get picky about semantics, but to me the expression of joy has more to do with the feeling of rapture and the expression of good fortune than simple happiness which is fleeting and temporary. The joy expressed in the celebration of the ritual of Brit Milah has much more to do with the rapture of connecting to over three thousand years of ancestry to Abraham, and ultimately to G-d. It is the result of the knowing that one's life is in service to the G-d of one's own understanding, whatever that may be.

I'd bet that most of the derogatory comments on my post were from people who are either atheists or agnostics, or people who have a grudge about the spiritual environment in which they were raised.

The mohel performing the surgery:

One of the great-grandfathers:

Friends of the father:

Cousins of the newly initiated (I think describing the events to imma):

Engaging with the spirit of the celebration:

Brit Milah

The Brit Milah or ritual circumcision is celebrated on the eighth day of life of a newborn Jewish male child. It was first performed by Abraham (when he was 99 years old, yikes!) as a sign of his covenant with G-d. The meaning and significance of the ritual is of profound significance, much too complicated for me to engage with here. Much more information can be found here. But it's a joyous occasion, except for the baby, with much celebrating.

The father preparing to put on tefillin before the ceremony.

Grandfather (on the right) and great-grandfather (on the left).

Both Grandfathers.

The child and uncle before the ceremony;

Father and son before the ceremony.

Grandfather holding the child while the mohel (a rabbi with surgical training) performs the procedure.